Attention, chatterboxes of the world: one day you may be rewarded for your talkativeness with power to juice up your cell phones. Researchers in Korea have figured out a way to turn the main ingredient in calamine lotion (zinc oxide) into a material that converts sound waves into electricity — and eventually, it could be used to power up cell handsets.
In a study, the scientists fashioned a piezoelectric material (nanowires sandwiched between electrodes) out of zinc oxide that generates 50 millivolts of energy.
That’s not enough to power a cell phone — most handsets require a few volts — but the researchers have high hopes that they will be able to generate more power from future versions of the piezoelectric material. So eventually, the more we talk on the phone, the more battery life we’ll have.
Via Network World
Why not make a cellular phone that converts all ambient noise to usable energy? That is, when you’re not using your phone, when you’re in a noisy environment and can’t talk anyway, your phone is gathering the energy you’ll need to make your next call.
(oh, and make it not kill bees either)
“50 millivolts of energy.” BS : energy is not measured in volts. Which remove a lot of credibility from the whole article.
it is really interesting to know that so much pizoelectricity can be produced which would be enough to charge small devices